The bell startles me awake, and immediately it strikes me that I was mistaken about something, the first of many things I will be mistaken about here. I thought I had left Time behind in Paris. But Time is here, too. Perhaps he could have been kept away if it weren’t for the church. Those who built it must have known they could get away with leaving this place timeless, letting the forest act like a great, somnolent clock, its many hands of leaves turning. Perhaps they considered living free of him. Perhaps they took a vote, closing their eyes, raising their hands. But, having never lived without him before, they lost the courage to try, and brusquely put the clock on the tower, like a priest who, rushed, hastily anoints the last revenant’s forehead with ash. Time had come with them here like a disease communicated by travelers. And so, even in this remote village, Time sits in his citadel, an aloof emperor ruling over an unthankful and distracted populace. Indeed, even the bells I woke to this morning have rebelled against him. Oh they toll when he tells them to, but no one pays them any attention. Time lives besieged here, like a missionary who, amongst the beauty of the pagan rituals, their customs, dress, songs, is beginning to lose his enthusiasm for converting the natives. Indeed, he begins to wonder if he himself isn’t the one being converted. Maybe one day Time will go insane here, his black hands writhing together at midnight like the hands of a distraught neighbor at the door. Or perhaps his hands will, irrespective of his will, begin rowing backwards through the dark hours. It will be a great erasure, like a refugee scuffing out the marks her boots have made in the snow. And this valley will finally be rid of Time, and the very stones will rejoice for being out of the shadow of his dictatorship.
The Village
The Village
The Village
The bell startles me awake, and immediately it strikes me that I was mistaken about something, the first of many things I will be mistaken about here. I thought I had left Time behind in Paris. But Time is here, too. Perhaps he could have been kept away if it weren’t for the church. Those who built it must have known they could get away with leaving this place timeless, letting the forest act like a great, somnolent clock, its many hands of leaves turning. Perhaps they considered living free of him. Perhaps they took a vote, closing their eyes, raising their hands. But, having never lived without him before, they lost the courage to try, and brusquely put the clock on the tower, like a priest who, rushed, hastily anoints the last revenant’s forehead with ash. Time had come with them here like a disease communicated by travelers. And so, even in this remote village, Time sits in his citadel, an aloof emperor ruling over an unthankful and distracted populace. Indeed, even the bells I woke to this morning have rebelled against him. Oh they toll when he tells them to, but no one pays them any attention. Time lives besieged here, like a missionary who, amongst the beauty of the pagan rituals, their customs, dress, songs, is beginning to lose his enthusiasm for converting the natives. Indeed, he begins to wonder if he himself isn’t the one being converted. Maybe one day Time will go insane here, his black hands writhing together at midnight like the hands of a distraught neighbor at the door. Or perhaps his hands will, irrespective of his will, begin rowing backwards through the dark hours. It will be a great erasure, like a refugee scuffing out the marks her boots have made in the snow. And this valley will finally be rid of Time, and the very stones will rejoice for being out of the shadow of his dictatorship.